Archives

Meta

Science and Engineering Indicators, from the National Science Board, provides a broad base of quantitative information on the U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise. Its Education Timeline provides statistics and data for every step of the education process that are helpful for students, faculty, parents, and more.

Though it continues to oppose the use of standardized test scores to gauge effectiveness, the nation’s largest teachers’ union for the first time affirmed that evidence of student learning must be considered in teacher evaluations.

The summer break will cost many students a month of learning, a sweeping new study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation and the Wallace Foundation reports. The setbacks also are cumulative, disproportionately affecting pupils from low-income families and all but guaranteeing a permanent achievement gap. The good news: quality summer programs can help stave off summer slide.

Understanding how friction works helps engineers design moving objects so they can be controlled. In this activity, students in grades 7 – 9 gain first-hand experience on how friction affects motion by building a hovercraft that uses air from a balloon to levitate a craft made from a compact disc (CD).

Eighty four percent of school districts nationwide anticipate cuts in funding for the coming school year. Of these, well over half plan to cut staff. “A grim situation is expected to worsen in the coming school year,” predicts the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group.

An Austrian engineering firm debuted a new type of hovercraft at the Paris Air Show, claiming it can take off and land vertically without using any rotor blades or fixed wings. Popular Science’s report says the Austrian Innovative Aeronautical Technology’s (IAT21) D-Dalus uses four contra-rotating turbines for propulsion, allowing “thrust to be fired in any direction, around any axis.”

The Republican chairman of the House education committee outlined publicly for the first time a timetable for rewriting the sprawling No Child Left Behind school accountability law. Minnesota Rep. John Kline said he would move five bills to the House floor by year’s end. Experts say that profound partisan disagreement with the Democrat-led Senate could doom the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s reauthorization this year.